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Religious Themes in Recent Soviet Cinema

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Religious Themes in Recent Soviet Cinema Religious Themes in Recent Soviet Cinema JOHN B. DUNLOP Like Soviet literature, Soviet cinema has in recent decades exhibited a persistent interest in religious themes, though this has usually been expressed in Aesopian fashion. The reason for the often elliptical and coded articulation of this interest has been the rigorous Soviet censorship. Lenin, as is well known, once termed the cinema "the most important art", because of its potential to reach a mass audience, and the Soviet authorities have traditionally subjected film to extremely close scrutiny. During the long Brezhnev years, films which raised serious questions about their possible political or ideational effect on viewers were placed on the shelf.) Instead of combing through Soviet cinema over the past thirty years for evidence of religious leanings, I have decided to concentrate on two distinguished modern filmmakers who, unlike other Soviet directors, have had the opportunity to make their religious commitment explicit: the late Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-86) and Andrei Konchalovsky (b. 1937). A number of other Soviet filmmakers also appear to have a keen interest in religious themes. One could cite, for example, the nameS of the late Vasili Shukshin (1929-74); the late Larisa Shepitko (1938-79); Elem Klimov (b. 1933), the recently-elected first secretary of the filmmakers' union; Rolan Bykov (b. 1929), ,director of the acclaimed Scarecrow (Chuche/o) (1984); and Georgian 'lfilm-maker Tengiz Abuladze (b. 1924), whose remarkable Repentance (Monanieba) (1984) took Moscow by storm when released in 1987. Since these individuals did not have the opportunity· to work in the West, however, the extent of their religious commitment remains problematic. It is politically impossible, even under the Gorbachev leadership, for a writer or film-maker to admit to being religious. Hence even writers like tpe eminent Kirghiz novelist Chingiz Aitmatov and directors like Abuladze, who are clearly focused on religious. themes, must, in interviews with Soviet and Western journalists, profess to being unbelievers. 2 I For a useful study of the Soviet film industry before its recent restructuring, see Val s. Golovskoy with John Rimberg, Behind the Soviet Screen (Ann Arbor, 1986). 2 Chingiz Aitmatov termed himself an atheist in an interview appearing in Literaturnaya Religious Themes in Soviet Cinema 211 Andrei Tarkovsky Andrei Tarkovsky died of cancer in Paris in late December 1986. In a career spanning twenty years in the Soviet Union, he received permission to make only five feature-length films. He also was able to make two films in the West, Nostaighia(1983) in Italy, and Sacrifice (Offret) (1986) in Sweden. Despite this fairly slender list of accomplishments, Tarkovsky is considered by many Western film critics to be a modern master of the cinema. Studies on him are beginning to proliferate in European languages. 3 Born in 1932, Tarkovsky was raised by his mother, a cultured woman who worked as a corrector at a Moscow printing press. His father, the well-known poet Arseni Tarkovsky, left his mother when Andrei was a boy. Mark Le Fanu believes that Tarkovsky was raised by his mother in an atmosphere permeated with Christianity: In the 1920s a number of intellectuals went back to religion ... It was not so much a clandestine allegiance in the sense of a secret following of observances . more a matter of general cultural sympathy. In addition, backing up the Tarkovsky Christianity and informing it was the always available presence in the household of the Russian literary classics in handed down editions, along with old-fashioned art albums of painters like Leonardo and Michelangelo. If none of these books was Orthodox Christian in the strict theological sense, they none the less breathed an ethical language informed by classical Christianity. And to be open to their influence provided, during Andrei's childhood, at least the glimpse of an alternative to the official state socialism imparted at school. 4 Kovacs and Szilagyi write, in a similar vein, that Tarkovsky was "co.psciously attached to the Russian cultural tradition, of which Orthodox thought is an organic part." 5 Thus while it is doubtful that Tarkovsky gained much of an understanding of the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church or of its gazeta of 13 August 1986. Along with writers Viktor Astaf'yev and Vasi!' Bykov, he was assailed for "God-seeking" in an article by doctor of philosophical sciences I. Kryvelev which appeared in Komsomolskaya pravda of 20 July 1986. Abuladze anwered a question from a Western reporter about religious symbols· in his film Repentance by stating "If kindness, beauty, and truth are to be considered the attributes of religion, then my works are indeed religious." (Cited in Roland Eggleston, "Tengiz Abuladze Talks about Repentance," Radio Liberty Research, RL 289/87, 21 July 1987, p. 3.) 'Two studies to appear in 1987 were by the British film critic Mark Le Fanu, The Cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky (London, 1987), and by the Hungarian critics Balint Andras Kovacs and Akos Szilagyi, Les Mondes d'Andrei Tarkovsky (Lausanne, 1987). 4Le Fanu, op. cit., p. 16. 'Kovacs and Szilagyi, op. cit., p. 83. 212 Religious Themes in Soviet Cinema theology - books on theology, including the writings of the Church Fathers, would" have been unavailable, though Tarkovsky was able to read the Bible - he seems to have been raised in an attitude of sympathy toward a church which was being harshly persecuted, indeed almost annihilated, during his boyhood. His presumed lack of any systematic training· or formation in Orthodox theology - religious education has been proscribed in the USSR since the 1920s­ would, on the other hand, contribute to his adopting beliefs which could in no sense be reconciled with the teachings of the Orthodox Church. As we shall see, like Lev Tolstoy and a number of cultural figures of the Silver Age*, Tarkovsky should be considered a kind of Orthodox heretic. In 1956, at the beginning of the Khrushchev "thaw", Tarkovsky enrolled at the All-Union Institute of Cinematography in Moscow (known by the acronym VOIK), where he was a student in the workshop of the outstanding pedagogue, Mikhail Romm (d. 1971), director of the anti-Stalinist film Ordinary Fascism (Obyknovenny Fashizm). Romm insisted that all his students immerse themselves in 19th century Russian classical literature and in the films of modern European masters like Bergman and Fellini. At VOIK, Tarkovsky met and began to collaborate with another exceptionally talented student, Andrei Konchalovsky, son of a leading Soviet literary bureaucrat Sergei Mikhalkov. (Konchalovsky took his mother's surname after a philosophical argument with his father.) Both Tarkovsky and Konchalovsky shared a strong interest in religion and a nuanced but deep-seated Russian patriotism. In 1962, Tarkovsky brought out his first full-length film, Ivan's Childhood (Ivanovo detstvo), which recounted the fate of a twelve-year-old boy who joins the partisans in a struggle against the Nazi invaders. The scenario for the film was written by Konchalovsky. 'IWith this film, it was clear that a major cinematic talent had appeared. "Remember this name: Andrei Tarkovsky", Romm told a gathering of viewers in early 1962.6 Later in the same year, Ivan's Childhood was awarded the Oolden Lion Prize -at the Venice International Film Festival. After this initial success, Tarkovsky and Konchalovsky decided to attack an extremely complex subject, a· film devoted to Andrei Rublyov, Russia's greatest icon painter ana a locally venerated saint of the Russian Church. In scope, the film was conceived of as the most *The "Silver Age" is the name used to describe the period of intense artistic, musical and literary creativity and theological philosophical searching amongst the Russian intelligentsia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries - Ed. 'See N.Zorkaya, "Zametki k portretu Andreya Tarkovskogo," in V.Fomin (compilier), Kinopanorama, vypusk 2-y (Mosocw, 1977), p. 144. Religious Themes in Soviet Cinema 213 artistically ambitious historical film to be made in the. USSR since Eisenstein's two-part Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Grozny). Before beginning work on the scenario, Tarkovsky and Koncha­ lovsky studied the architecture, iconography, and written texts of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, the period upon which the film was to focus. They consulted Soviet medieval specialists, who encouraged them in their project. One of the planned aims of the film, Tarkovsky later recalled; "was to reconstruct for a modern audience the real world of the fifteenth century, that is, to present the world in such a way that costume, speech, life-style and architecture would not give the audience any feeling of relic, of antiquarian rarity." 7 Architectural monuments from the period were introduced into the film: the prologue, for example, was filmed at the famous church of Pokrov on the Nerl, while other episodes were filmed in the medieval towns of Vladimir and Suzdal', and at the Andronikov Monastery in Moscow. By the time that this ambitious film had been completed; it was 1966, and Khrushchev had been ousted from power.· The new political leadership under Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin was engaged in rolling back the liberalisations of the Khrushchev period, and Andrei Rublyov, with its unorthodox themes and stylistic experimentation, landed on the shelf for a period of five and a half years. Indeed the film might never have been released in the USSR were it not for keen Western interest in it. When it was shown hors concours at the Cannes Film Festival in 1969, Andrei Rublyov garnered the International Critics' Prize. Two years later it was released in the Soviet Union. The intense difficulties which Tarkovsky experienced in gaining the release of Andrei Rublyov were a foretaste of problems to come, His next film, Solaris (Solyaris) (1972), which is based on a novel by Polish science fiction author Stanislaw Lem, confused many Soviet vie}Vers and was attacked by critics when it first came out because of its experimental style; today, however, it is considered to be one of the most easily understood of Tarkovsky's films.
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